


Onisius of Gotham

by Mithen



Category: DCU, The Pretender
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-30
Updated: 2009-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-04 00:19:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Centre loses their pet Pretender, they send Miss Parker and Sydney to Gotham to find him.  Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne realizes his newest mechanical engineer might not be quite what he appears to be...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Onisius of Gotham

Jarod was sitting in the middle of the floor, surrounded by notebooks and clippings, when Sydney entered the room.  The boy was sketching something on a piece of paper--No, Sydney corrected himself firmly, he had to stop thinking of Jarod as a "boy."  He'd just celebrated his thirty-third birthday;  he was a man now.

Or would have been, if not for the Centre's interference.  _And your own_, whispered the inner voice he heard more and more often in recent years.

He forced the whisper from his mind and smiled jovially at Jarod.  "Any progress?"

Jarod frowned down at the sketch.  "I've read thirty years of city records.  I've run the simulations.  I believe I understand what drives him, what his motivations are."  He looked up at Sydney from the floor, that disconcertingly direct look that seemed to peer into Sydney's soul.  "It's curious."

Sydney moved to squat on the floor beside him, carefully avoiding the yellowed newspapers and society photographs, trying not to reveal his excitement.  The Centre had been working on this...problem...for five years now, and if Jarod could make a breakthrough--  "What's curious, Jarod?"

"The thirst for vengeance, for retribution.  That's what he lives for.  But not a personal vengeance.  It's...bigger than that.  Justice at the most abstract level.  Righting of wrongs.  All of them."  He looked at Sydney again, squinting slightly.  "_All of them._  What would it take to be that kind of man?"

A faint unease stirred in Sydney, but he tamped it down.  "Focus, Jarod.  Have you answered the question?"

Jarod cocked his head as if listening to something the psychiatrist couldn't hear, some very high, far-away sound.  "Sydney," he said--and later Sydney would remember the tone of his voice, the mix of tenderness and bitter anger, a mix he had never truly heard in his subject before--"If I really have puzzled out the answer the Centre wants...if I have figured out the secret identity of the Batman...

_"...Why exactly would I tell you?"_

The words and the tone rang in Sydney's ears the next day as he stood in the empty room, feeling as staggered as if lightning had struck him.  His subject--his boy--Jarod was gone.  _He knows_, Sydney could only think, the words echoing numbly inside his skull.  _He knows what we've been using him for._

_God help us all._

Miss Parker was smiling, that brittle smile, and holding up the origami figure Jarod had left behind:  dark gray wings outspread.  "Do you know what this is?"

"Some kind of angel," Sydney managed through his worry and something that would be guilt if he let it.  He couldn't let it, not after all these years.

She shook her head, almost pityingly.  "Syd.  This is Onisius, the Greek God of vengeance.  Of retribution.  Your little _science project_\--"  She spat the words, "--has gotten it into his head to become a vigilante, running around righting wrongs."

Sydney stared at the winged paper.  It didn't look like a god to him.  Not at all.

It looked like a bat.

He bent down and picked Jarod's sketch of the day before off the floor.  "I think I know where to start looking," he said, holding up the inky black lines of the Gotham skyline.

**: : :**

** _There are Pretenders among us. Geniuses with the ability to be become anyone they want to be. _ **

In 1963 a corporation known as the Centre isolated a young Pretender named Jarod and exploited his genius for their research.

Then one day their Pretender ran away...

**: : :**

Bruce Wayne squinted at the diagrams.  "It's Greek to me, Lucius," he said.  "You say this is one of our new engineers?"  It wasn't Greek to him, of course.  Not at all.  It was, instead, a brilliant redesign of the pulley system Wayne Enterprises used in its derrick cranes. 

Lucius Fox took the designs back.  "Jarod Tuttle.  He's been with us for three weeks and this isn't the first redesign he's suggested.  They're all revolutionary, sir."

"You're suggesting I give him a raise?  A promotion?"

Fox rustled the papers and glanced at Bruce.  "I'm suggesting you talk to him.  He's..."  He pursed his lips and looked slightly exasperated.  "He's clearly a genius, and seems like a nice guy, but there's more to him than that.  He's hiding something.  His background check revealed nothing," he said as Bruce opened his mouth, "And no one here but me seems to find him suspicious.  But I tell you, the man is hiding something."

"Gut instinct?"

A wry look.  "He reminds me a lot of...someone I know, sir."

Bruce nodded slowly.  "I'll talk to him."

**: : :**

Wayne Enterprises' newest mechanical engineer looked up as Bruce approached his desk, and a look of surprise intermingled with what seemed to be honest pleasure crossed his face.  "Mr. Tuttle," said Bruce.

"Sir," said Jarod, smiling.

Bruce leaned against the divider, smiling himself.  "Mr. Fox tells me you're doing good work."

"I'd like to think so.  In fact, I've got some new ideas about a camshaft system if you'd like to take a look--"

Bruce waved aside the papers, although from the glimpse he got of them made his hands itch.  "I don't understand a thing about what you folks do with the gears and the levers and stuff.  But I appreciate hard work."

Jarod beamed.  "Thank you, sir!"  His delight seemed almost childish, unfeigned.  "Oh," he said suddenly as if he'd just remembered something, "Check this out!"  Bruce was expecting another set of diagrams, but instead Jarod pulled open a drawer and took out a bright red yo-yo.  He let it unreel, then snapped it up into his hand again, grinning.  "Isn't that amazing?"

"It's a yo-yo," Bruce said, wondering how he always seemed to attract the crazies in whatever guise.

"It's a child's toy, can you believe it?" Jarod announced, squinting up at Bruce in what appeared to be glee.  "Inertia, potential and kinetic energy, gravitational forces and drag forces--who knew toys were so _complicated?"_  He watched the yo-yo unfurl again in apparent fascination, then snapped it back up.  "Fascinating!  A toy!"

Bruce couldn't help but smile at the infectious wonder in his voice.  "It is fairly amazing, isn't it?"

Jarod's eyebrows went up.  "A Duchenne smile--I'm honored."

"What?"

"A smile that contracts the orbicularis oculi muscle at the corner of the eyes as well as the zygomatic major muscle at the mouth.  The orbicularis oculi muscle is beyond human voluntary control, which is why it's so hard to fake an honest smile.  You're good at it.  But very few of your photographs show you with a Duchenne smile.  Sir."  He smiled up at Bruce as if inviting him into a secret.  "Here's something else I've found recently."  He held out a Pez dispenser, flipped open Batman's head to reveal a candy lozenge.  "Cool, isn't it?  Sweet on the inside."

Bruce took the bit of candy and popped it in his mouth.  "Thank you."

"No, thank _you_."

**: : :**

"It's not a coincidence?"  Nightwing crounched next to Batman as the vigilante trained a set of binoculars on a building.

"It could be.  But the last name makes me suspicious."

"Tuttle?"

"Merlin Tuttle is the world's best-known researcher and photographer of bats.  Founder of Bat Conservation International.  No, I think Wayne Enterprise's newest mechanical engineer is trying to send me a message."

"But you can't find anything incriminating about him?"

"Everything checks out.  But I think Lucius is right.  There's something about him..."

"And he's doing volunteer work here?"  Nightwing nodded toward the Gotham Animal Shelter, its sign peeling and hanging askew.

"Every night."

"Guy's a saint," Dick commented.

"Hm."

Dick frowned.  "Don't you have an outstanding case that connects to this shelter?  One of the volunteers here?"

Another grunt.  "She was found in her apartment that she shared with her thirty cats.  They'd attacked and partially eaten her."

"That's right, the Gotham Cat Lady," Dick said, snapping his fingers.

"Her name was Angela.  Angela Shearman," Batman said.

"Right.  Sorry.  Was there any sign of foul play?"

"None.  She appears to have fallen and hit her head.  But the cause of death was the cats."

"Not like cats to attack their owner so quickly.  They're not the most loyal of animals, but--"

Batman's posture tensed and Dick looked toward the shelter to see two figures emerging:  a man in a black leather trenchcoat and a woman in jeans and a t-shirt, her dark hair tousled.  "Selina looks good in anything," he noted.

"Hm."

Jarod offered his arm to Selina Kyle in an almost comically gallant fashion, and she threw back her head and laughed, the sound ringing off the brick tenement walls, before hooking her arm through his.  Together they ambled down the street.

"She seems to like him," Dick said.

"Hm."

"Not the most loyal of animals."

"NIghtwing?"

"Yes?"

Batman released a grapple into the shadows.  "Cut it out," he said before disappearing.

Nightwing shot his shadow an ironic salute.  "Aye aye, sir."

Three hours later, patrol was almost done, and the duo was swinging past Crime Alley when Batman suddenly stopped and dropped down to the street.  Nightwing followed, to find Jarod standing in a pool of light from a streetlamp.  Letting a yo-yo unspool and snap back up lazily.  Just waiting. 

"Evening," he said as the two vigilantes alighted in front of him.  "So this is where it all started."

"Gotham streets are dangerous at night," Batman grated.

"Indeed they are," Jarod said pleasantly.  "And dangerous people walk them."  He smiled slightly, a sweet and sad smile.  "I know what it means to lose your parents.  How it can drive you.  We serve the same spirit, my friends."

"And what is that?"

Jarod's smile took on a less pleasant edge.  "Vengeance.  The righting of wrongs.  When the cries of the innocent go unheard, we hear them.  And we make others hear them too."

Nightwing expected Batman to snarl something at Jarod, but instead there was a long, thoughtful pause.  "It's not an easy life," Batman said eventually. 

"I don't want an easy life.  I want a good life."

A ruminating growling noise from beneath the cowl.  "We'll see," he said.

Jarod flicked the yo-yo up again.  "Balance.  What goes down must come up."  His gaze went past Batman and met Nightwing's eyes, and his smile this time was clear and sweet.  "Nice to meet you," he said.

"You too," Nightwing said without thinking.

"Well.  We all have work to do," said Jarod, pocketing the yo-yo.  "Thank you for talking to me."  He slipped into the shadows.

"Interesting guy," said Nightwing.

"Hm."

**: : :**

Alfred Pennyworth opened the door to find two people standing on the step:  a dark-haired woman in a tight black leather miniskirt and an older man in a suit.  He blinked slightly at the sight of them, but otherwise showed no reaction at all.  "May I help you?"

The woman smiled at him, a smile with far too many teeth.  "I'm Parker, this is Sydney.  We're here to talk to your boss about one of his employees."  She flashed a badge too quickly for Alfred to catch, with the confident air of someone who's used to intimidating and impressing.  "It's a matter of national security."

"Master Bruce is in the living room," said Alfred.  "I'm sorry," he added as the two started to enter, "But I'm afraid there is no smoking in Wayne Manor."

The woman glanced at her cigarette as if she'd forgotten it was in her hand.  "Ah."  She bent down and ground it out on the granite doorstop.  "Lead on, Jeeves."

Ten minutes later, Miss Parker and Bruce Wayne were engaged in a sparkling duel of false smiles and insincere pleasantries.  Neither seemed to be getting anywhere.  Alfred turned to Sydney.  "Perhaps I could give you a tour of the Manor while Master Bruce and Miss Parker have their chat?"

Sydney bounced on the heels of his feet a bit, his hands behind his back.  "It would be a pleasure."  He didn't look at Miss Parker for permission, but she waved magninamously anyway as they left the room.

The tour stopped in one of the kitchens.  "Would you like a spot of tea?" said Alfred.  Sydney nodded and the butler pulled out two teacups.  As the water heated, Sydney looked out the kitchen window.  On the yard a group of young people were playing touch football--an older and younger boy with dark hair, a quiet dark-haired girl, and a girl with blond hair pulled back in a ponytail.  On the side a woman in a wheelchair was typing on a taptop and throwing teasing insults into the fray.

A teacup was placed in front of Sydney.  "With sugar and lemon.  I believe that's how you like it."

Sydney glanced at him quickly, then slowly lifted the teacup.  "Darjeeling.  I haven't had good Darjeeling tea in years."

"Why not?"

Sydney shrugged.  "Tastes change.  We move on."  Another long sip.  "I'm surprised to find you here."

"Not as surprised as I am to find you here."

Sydney winced a little.  "It's a long story."

"I'm certain."  Alfred looked at him.

"I'm doing good work with the Centre.  I'm working with children, like you are--"

"--I sincerely doubt that."  Alfred's voice was quiet, but his eyes snapped an old fire.

Sydney watched the laughing group on the lawn.  "We both wanted to make the world better, Alf.  And now look at us.  A butler and a..."  He sighed.  "I don't know what I am anymore."

"I think perhaps you're a better man than you've let yourself be."

Sydney shook his head.  "I wish that were true.  I really do."

"You can make it true."

Sydney didn't respond, just followed the children with his eyes.  If they were slightly more acrobatic in their catches than many children would be, slightly faster in their sprints, he didn't note it out loud.  He sat and watched them as the shadows lengthened across the grass, until Miss Parker's irritable voice cut into his reverie.  "This was a waste of time, Syd," she said, bursting through the kitchen doors.  "Let's get going."  She swiveled sharply and brushed past the smiling Bruce Wayne.  "I'll find my own way out, thanks, Mr. Belvedere."

Sydney put down the teacup and nodded to Alfred.  "Thank you for the tea, Mr. Pennyworth."

"I hope you find what you're looking for," said Alfred.

**: : :**

"Why _here_?" Nightwing said in surprise as the pair stopped outside the circus grounds.  The freshly-pasted posters proclaiming Haley's Circus back in town were on every telephone pole.  "Are you sure that tracker you put on him is accurate?"

"Positive," said Batman as they got out of the car.  "Besides, he wants us to follow him."

"How do you know?"

A brief flash of teeth in the dark as they made their way toward the tents.  "Because we were able to follow him."

They heard the voice begging even before they entered the tent:  "Oh God, oh God, oh God _please_!  Let me down!"  They slipped in to see the director of the Gotham Animal Shelter hanging by his ankles from a rope on a pulley, suspended over a cage with two lions pacing back and forth, looking up at him.  One of them licked its chops and the man whimpered.

"Did you give Angela Shearman that chance?  Did she even have the chance to _beg?"_  Jarod was standing next to the pulley.  His voice was hard, harsh, all joviality stripped from it.  He let the pulley ratchet down a couple more inches, and the director wriggled and gasped in terror.  "She found out what you were doing, didn't she?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!"  One of the lions went up on its hind legs, batting at the air, and the director shrieked and flinched, setting himself swinging slightly.

"Angela found out you were using animals from the shelter for research you intended to sell to the defense department.  Drugs to drive animals into a killer frenzy." 

"No!"

The tent flap behind Batman and Nightwing stirred and another figure slipped in:  black leather, goggles, whip coiled at her waist.  Catwoman put her hands on her hips and listened.

"You knocked her out and fed her cats the drug so they'd rip her apart.  You knew it wasn't traceable yet.  You'd _made it_ that way."  Another ratchet and the man slipped a few inches lower.  "I wonder if she gained consciousness at any point.  If she had to feel her own beloved pets killing her.  Imagine her terror."  Another inch.  "_Can you imagine it yet?"_

One of the lions growled and lunged upward.  He squealed.  "You don't know what it's like!" he gasped, his voice desperate.  "You couldn't understand!"

"Understand what?"

"The shelter gets no money!  We _need_ more funds!  Angela found out--she found out I'd been picking up some extra animals from the streets.  She was furious!  Said I was killing peoples' pets for my own gain!  I had no choice!"  The man's eyes rolled as he stared at the two lions below him.  "Now please, please, please let me go!"

"Tell me where the drugs are."

"In the safe in my house!  They're there!"  The man gabbled out a combination.

"Thank you!" announced Jarod, all smiles again as he held up a portable recorder and clicked it off.  "I'm sure Commissioner Gordon will be interested in this information."  He slipped it into his pocket and pulled out his yo-yo.

"Aren't--aren't you going to let me down?"

Jarod twirled the yo-yo in crazy, elaborate patterns that should have taken him years to learn.  "Oh," he said.  "I think I'll leave you here for the police to pick up.  I checked the pulley, it looked safe to me.  But on the other hand," he said sweetly, "I'm not actually a mechanical engineer."  He snapped the yo-yo into his hand with a flourish.  "Just thought you'd like to know."  He slapped the pulley and it dropped a foot with a jerk, making the man scream in terror.  "Whoops!" he said gaily.

He slipped out a different entrance, leaving Nightwing, Batman, and Catwoman gazing at the man dangling over the lions.  Catwoman made a scornful spitting sound.  "He should have let the lions eat him.  I suppose it's not too late," she said hopefully, looking over at the heroes.

"What, Mwezi and Shemshi?" Nightwing said, nodding at the big cats pacing and growling in their cage.  "Pop Haley rescued them from a different circus years ago--they're declawed and toothless."  One of the lions jumped up, his paw grazing the terrified man's hair.  "He doesn't know that, though."

"I think he can stay there until the police come," Batman noted.

Catwoman smiled.

**: : :**

Miss Parker pelted up the fire escape, the two Centre muscle right behind her.  She burst onto the roof--and discovered to her annoyance that she was on the wrong building.  Jarod was sitting on a gargoyle the next building over, smiling at her.  "Shoot him!" Parker barked, whipping out her own gun and taking aim--

Three quick cracking noises and Parker's gun flew from her tingling fingers to clatter to the ground far below her.  She heard the Centre men behind her cursing and looked up to see a woman in a black leather costume, cat-like ears on her cowl, land next to the gargoyle next to Jarod.  "Guns in Gotham are so..._crude_, I always say."  She let her whip coil around her leg and put an arm around Jarod.  "Dear me," she said to Parker.  "How could you let this one slip away?  I think he's _adorable_."  She kissed Jarod lingeringly on the cheek as if trying to make Miss Parker fume.  Juvenile antics, Parker seethed to herself, her fingernails cutting into the palms of her hands.

"Jarod, the Centre is going to bring you back no matter what," she snarled across the gap.  "Quit this do-gooder nonsense and come back before you get yourself hurt."

He cocked his head at her and smiled.  "I'm afraid I can't do that, Miss Parker.  This is _far_ too fun."  He turned and started to walk off the roof.  "Oh, give Sydney my regards," he shot back before vanishing into the shadows. 

Catwoman blew Miss Parker a kiss before leaping off into the darkness in turn.

Parker could hear her own teeth grinding.  In the distance, a beacon of light suddenly stabbed at the sky, and she threw back her head and yelled at it:  "This town is full of _freaks!"_

**: : :**

Bruce Wayne found the origami on his desk the next day.  He dropped the newspaper onto the shining mahogany (_Shelter Director Arrested for Murder_, cried the headline) and picked up the figure, its wings spread protectively.  Writing tucked into the folds caught his eye, and he smoothed the paper to read it.

_Thank you for everything.  I've learned a great deal from my time watching you.  I hope to apply some of those lessons in my own way._ 

It could have been referring to his time working at Wayne Enterprises, possibly.

Bruce refolded the paper carefully and put it in his briefcase to take home.

**: : :**

"That's weird."

Miss Parker dropped a couple of papers on Broots's desk as she paced by.  "What's weird?" she asked, glaring at another sheet of paper.

"Someone just talked to me."

"You're right," Miss Parker said absently, "That is weird."

"No, I mean, through my computer.  That shouldn't be possible.  This is a totally secure line." 

"Mr. Broots."  The voice coming from the computer speakers was heavily distorted, mechanical.

Miss Parker raised an eyebrow and watched as a green mask formed on Broots's screen.  He gave a small squeak and moved backwards.  "Oracle!"

Miss Parker leaned closer.  "Oracle?"

"Oracle!  You know...the computer hacker genius?"  Broots sounded astonished someone might not know the name.

"Mr. Broots," said the metallic voice.  The mask's mouth didn't move.  "I am here to suggest you abandon your misguided attempts to deduce Batman's identity."

Broots opened his mouth to say something, but Miss Parker cut in.  "Wherever did you get that impression?"  Her voice was like ice-cold oil.

"Let's just say I have my ways.  And if I see you continuing along these avenues of investigation, I shall be forced to take action.  And even the considerable skill of Mr. Broots will not be enough to save your precious Centre.  As a demonstration--" All the lights in the room suddenly flickered and dimmed for a moment, then came back on.

"We'd destroy you," snarled Parker.

"Perhaps.  Continue to interfere and we'll find out."  The screen went blank.

Miss Parker growled something between her teeth.  "What are you smiling about?" she grated to Broots, who was still grinning at the screen.

"'Considerable skill,'" he said dazedly.  "He said I had 'considerable skill'!  I mean--Oracle--he's the most--"

"--He?"  Miss Parker cut in, baring her teeth.

"Well, sure, Oracle is--"

"Oracle's a woman," she said.  "Trust me, Broots.  I can tell."

She walked off with her high heels clicking angrily to report to her father about this most recent complication.

**: : :**

There was a package sitting on Sydney's desk.  He looked at it for a long time before opening it.  To his surprise, it wasn't from Jarod.

Inside was a tin of Darjeeling tea, and a note:  _"Perhaps tastes change.  Perhaps not.  There's nothing wrong with returning to what you once loved."_  It was signed from Alfred Pennyworth.

Sydney looked at the note for a long time.  He opened the tin and inhaled the aroma:  crisp and clean with a hint of floral, a scent of days long past.

He stood up after a while and started to make himself a cup.


End file.
